How does /pol/ debunk Guns, Germs, and Steel?
>>133027034
what's the thesis of that book?
>>133027127
This I'm curious
>>133027127
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel
>>133027127
He talks about how Western Primacy was shaped by arbitrary arrows moving sideways instead of vertically
>>133027344
>>133027127
Geographical/Ecological Determinism.
He basically BTFO "race realists" etc. who use the civilization argument
(they didn't develop civilization as we did so they are dumber)
>>133027344
I'm willing to concede that if niggers lived in Yurop for 3000 or so years and evolved through sideways arrows of constant military and economic competition and urban germ immunity while white people lived in Africa for 3000 or so years with vertical arrows with a warm climate, shitty trade routes and low military competition then the niggers would be the Europeans but they aren't so it doesn't fucking matter.
>>133027728
>Da wes had domesticated animals n shit
>Das why dey betta than us
>You jus can domesticste African animals muffugah, just look at these zebras the-
Also , the only reason Rhodesia became a bread basket and why South Africa had such good medical Care was because of high agency whites.
>>133028107
>south africa
>representative of all africa
>>133027034
The idea that Africans had a less livable environment is absolute bullshit
it was written by a Jew
/end of thread
>>133028668
Yeah, apparently an anon knows better than a biology/anthropology/evolution professor LMAO
also picrel
>>133027034
I'd argue that the fact that literally every content except Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia developing advanced civilizations is a pretty good refutation. The notion that Africa was simply dealt a shit hand seems incredibly suspect when you have people developing civilization literally everywhere else.
One great example that he glosses over is elephants as working animals. The issue being not that it isn't possible but that it's too hard which of course the Indus-Valley civilization was able to overcome but the Africans couldn't. His ideas on domestication are also completely ass backwards and work under the assumption that advanced civilizations plucked ready to farm animals out of the wild instead of selectively breeding them for attributes like docility. The auroch was by no means a docile animal but it's the ancestor of all modern European cattle.
>>133028548
Where else in Africa has 1st world tier health care infrastructure that didn't break down immediately once white people left their colonies?
>>133029041
Not really. Outside of Eurasia, you had only 2 major civilizations, and they were both stationed in between the Americas.
>>133029023
Well yeah I do.
>>133029279
North America had at least one advanced civilization, they simply disappeared before the arrival of Europeans leaving remnant tribes in what is pretty close to a post-apocalyptic landscape.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture
The ME and North Africa also had advanced civilizations since advanced here just means they had developed agriculture and generally primitive metal working such as cold forming soft metals although the ME had extremely advanced metal working as did some regions in northern Africa. There really isn't a region outside of the extreme north and south of the Americas that lacked advanced civilizations outside of the aforementioned regions of Australia and southern Africa.
>>133027728
But the adaptation of civilization influenced our evolution by selecting for certain characteristics.
Read "The 10,000 Year Explosion".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_10,000_Year_Explosion
>>133029023
Nice appeal to authority fallacy, dumbass.
In "Guns, Germs, and Steel" Diamond states that all of mankind is equally intelligent, except the natives of Papua New Guinea who are smarter than the rest of humanity. Seem reasonable to you?
>>133030923
>Diamond states that all of mankind is equally intelligent, except the natives of Papua New Guinea who are smarter than the rest of humanity
source
>>133027034
the book is not aimed at college students.
it's aimed at a 'popular' audience, not at educated ppl.
>>133030310
>advanced civilization
>The Mississippians had no writing system or stone architecture
lmao
>>133031487
And what's bad about that? If books were made only for educated people, the world wouldn't progress.
>>133031347
Why are you asking for the source? It's in the book.
Why are you defending a book you obviously haven't read?
https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/the-masters-of-the-future/
>>133031756
Because I can, fag. I'm defending the thesis, not the book.
>>133031886
So answer my question, does that seem reasonable to you?
>>133031653
You're moving the goal posts bad but even then the Aztecs had no written language until the arrival of Europeans which by your own admission was an advanced civilization.
>>133027034
The approach of searching for and finding facts that support a theory and dismissing facts that don't is unscientific. One should look at all facts and find a theory to connect them. Diamond is a PC cuck sucking the 'teh whites are a devil' cock.
Murrka had a lot better supply and variety of edible plants than europe yet native murrkans never even dreamed of achieving what europeans did. People forget how shitty europe was historically as far as diet goes yet Diamond makes food surplus as #1 reason that europeans had 'advantage'. Germs? Bwahahaha. We had germs that fucked up natives. Natives had germs that fucked up us. You think white colonial forces just went around traipsing through africa? Sure. With a date of expiry of less than a year for your average european explorer who decided to wander around. Yet europeans pwned niggers and not the other way around. Diamond makes a lot of assumptions that don't stand up to scrutiny and the only thing his crappy book has going for it is the fact that it is protected by the PC culture and social stigma for any white person not self-flagelating in public.
>>133027034
It's Yiddish propaganda that tries to explain away the inferiority of blacks with sociological and environmental causes.
>>133027034
Why not copy and paste the parts you believe in?
One thing I heard claimed is that Africa didn't succeed because the zebras could not be ridden like horses. That's retarded, since they could just send people to other countries and bring horses. The West somehow managed to trade globally.
Guns, Germs and Steel is a book you have to read for yourself because it goes against the "dem niggers are just dumb" agenda so you have idiot anons who can't read it with a clear mind and spit out hyperbole and over exaggerate his claims
>>133031953
I don't know the context.
>>133032512
I'm not moving goalposts. It's a common definition of civilization - advanced urban tissue and a working law system (and that obviously implies an efficient writing system). I was talking about the Incas and Mayans. I forgot about Aztecs, so that makes it 3. And Aztecs did have their own writing system.
>>133033132
And it does it good seemingly. So good, that it basically blows you the fuck out.
>>133032809
>Murrka had a lot better supply and variety of edible plants than europe yet native murrkans never even dreamed of achieving what europeans did.
Clearly didn't read the book or at least even what was in it. It was more difficult for the achievements to spread around the American continent than Eurasia and climate changed dramatically.
>>133033683
>The West somehow managed to trade globally.
After they had already developed.
>>133034119
this
>>133033683
http://messybeast.com/history/working.htm
>>133033683
In Jared Diamond's world mountains don't exist and large bodies of water can't be crossed prior to the age of sail because Vikings didn't exist and Polynesians especially didn't exist.
>>133034171
>Clearly didn't read the book or at least even what was in it. It was more difficult for the achievements to spread around the American continent than Eurasia and climate changed dramatically.
Son, if I'm gonna give you a TL;DR why that book is crap and you cherry-pick one sentence, stick your fingers in your ears and go "LA LA LA I can't hear you" then this whole thread is pointless.
>>133034318
There were attempts to domesticate zebras but it didn't work out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMpMxaX3Kdg
"If you look at the pre-history of the domestication of the horse, you’ll notice that the first domesticated horses were tiny. The weren’t ridden, they started off as draft animals. Eventually they were bred into a huge variety, from large to small.
By contrast, the zebra is pretty big animal, and not a friendly one, no matter how cute. It can (and does) kick lions to death. It also has a very strong social structure (only recently discovered) that makes it impossible to put zebras in random order together.
The zebra is simply not a tameable animal."
>>133034607
The door is this way.
>>133034171
>It's a common definition of civilization - advanced urban tissue and a working law system
The later isn't precluded by lack of a writing system. Tribal law is still law.
>And Aztecs did have their own writing system.
No they didn't. Pictograms are not a writing system. If you want to go and call them one anyway then every civilization had a writing system because the use of pictograms predates recorded history.
>>133027034
You don't need. It avoids Social Darwinism by the skin of its teeth.
Essentially, the argument that is proposed in the book is that simply some places are garbage for what is considered civilization building while Europe-Asia-Middle East are all much stronger in that regard.
He avoids as much as possible putting any sort of interpretation towards the people, but he does interestingly enough give accounts of behaviors of animals that lend themselves to domestication, and how technologies build logic on themselves; e.g., writing is a byproduct of agriculture.
With the information given, you can come to a conclusion very similar to Masahiro Morioka; that humans are self domesticated. Their environment has influenced their genetics.
Or, in a more /pol/ish way
>Anyone who doesn't come from an agricultural civilization is pretty much a savage.
>These savages when placed in agricultural civilizations are essentially "tame" humans rather than domesticated humans